Gender Reversed Geum Taeyang - Chapter 46
Chapter 46 – Shopping (2)
“So you’re Ari’s younger brother.”
“Y-yes…”
To be called ‘Ari’s brother.’
Was this the friend my sister mentioned?
Setting aside why my sister would be acquainted with such a man…
Even if he’s someone close to my sister… can he just let that slide?
Those fierce eyes scan my face.
Maybe if I bow deeply now, I could survive. Why did I have to dry my hands there?
If only I had dried my hands inside the bathroom…
This is a moment when I deeply regret my past actions.
Damn. That man raises his hand and reaches toward me.
My body flinches and trembles.
Those arm muscles too solid to be considered normal for a man, my instincts warning me that this person is dangerous.
That frightening arm.
“Hahaha… Why are you so scared? Is it because of earlier? That’s nothing.”
“Huh?”
He pats my shoulder and turns back around.
What’s with those warm words?
An incomprehensible situation.
Then he’s cheerfully chatting with my sister, and from the outside, they look quite good together.
Is he just pretending to be nice in front of my sister?
No, it might sound strange to say this after trembling earlier, but seeing him chat with my sister like that, there’s a high possibility he’s actually a nice person.
I know better than anyone that my sister has compulsively disliked thugs since she was young.
It’s not like my sister has poor judgment of character either.
So he’s just someone who looks fierce but…
Why won’t this subtle uneasiness go away?
There’s something inexplicably strange about the sight of these two chatting and laughing.
Is it because a woman with a boyfriend is laughing and talking with another man?
Though it looks like just a wholesome friendship… besides, my sister isn’t the type to be interested in other men.
Still, something feels off.
Something feels unsettling.
My sister’s behavior seems a bit lighter than before after meeting her again after a long time.
My sister, who always showed the epitome of propriety, seems somewhat more relaxed today.
Their conversation seems filled with emotions that could be either friendship or affection.
“Jihun? Are you okay?”
“Seol Jihun, what’s wrong with you?”
“Uh, huh? No, nothing…”
When I try to relax, my instincts oppose it.
I’m not sure why, but looking at that guy makes anxiety well up inside me.
Though I don’t like making baseless claims like this.
But.
I feel like I shouldn’t trust that person.
###
I guess I do look somewhat dangerous.
If someone like me was hanging around a woman who has a boyfriend, I’d probably feel uneasy too.
But maybe sincerity gets through.
Jihun maintained a hostile attitude toward me for a while, to the point where Ari expressed her discomfort about it.
But whether to call it professionalism or not… once we started looking at clothes in the store, his attitude became completely serious.
Maybe his hostility toward me disappeared within that seriousness, and now he’s treating me like a friend.
“No, hyung. You need to try on more clothes before buying. Try these on, will you?”
“Isn’t that color too bright…”
“Just try it on. It’d be a waste with that face of yours.”
“That’s right, sir. It’s a waste to just wear T-shirts with looks like yours.”
If my life were a gender-swap story, both people beside me would be women. Though I have no intention of becoming a woman.
Anyway, as expected, even the staff at the men’s clothing store in this reversed world was male.
Well, having two guys next to me using what I’d consider feminine speech patterns…
How should I put it… it felt like I might fall into a trance.
Jihun and the store clerk started picking out all sorts of clothes, saying they couldn’t let my face go to waste with clothes.
As for me, well.
“Ari… I think I’m going to die.”
“But everything looked good on you though?”
“That’s fortunate, but still…”
At first, Ari would blush and repeat like a parrot that I looked handsome every time I changed into new clothes, but now she’s just enjoying this situation. Devilish woman.
The men’s clothing in this reversed world wasn’t that special.
While the colors were generally bright, there weren’t many thin, fluttery clothes like women wore in the previous world.
It’s fortunate since even I, who’s trying to adapt bit by bit to this reversed world, wouldn’t want to wear clothes like women’s clothing from the previous world.
Anyway, what I need to buy is proper attire for when I go to Sehee’s school.
I never seriously picked out clothes before, so I didn’t know it would take this long, but is this the male culture of the reversed world? I couldn’t help but be shocked.
I wasn’t particularly interested in fashion, never had occasions to wear nice clothes even if I bought them, and lived thinking clothes just needed to be comfortable, so even more so.
I don’t mean to complain about them helping me for my sake… but I can’t help but sigh.
“Hehe. I’m glad it’s not me.”
“No, Ari…! Haah… I’ll definitely get my revenge.”
Ari, who seems to have lost much of her old seriousness.
Though by ‘old’ I mean about a month ago.
Anyway, she’s definitely changed.
At first, she was somewhat robotic, but now she’s become more human, you could say.
She seems more comfortable now, and it feels better this way.
Still.
She needs to pay for lines like that.
“Phew… I’ll change quickly and come out.”
The casual clothes Jihun put in my hands.
I left them on the sofa where I was sitting and entered the fitting room.
A man’s heart is best understood by another man.
Which means I also understand the hearts of women in this reversed world.
Even though it’s Sunday, surprisingly there are no other customers in the store besides us, and the distance from the fitting room to the sofa is short.
A perfect plan came to mind.
After entering the fitting room, I waited a moment while rubbing my short-sleeved shirt to make noise.
After an appropriate amount of time passed…
I slightly opened the fitting room door and said to Ari.
“Ari, I think I left my clothes out there, could you bring them to me?”
“Ah… wait a moment.”
That short distance. If I were dressed, I could just come out and get them.
If I were dressed that is.
I subtly signaled that I was in the middle of changing clothes.
After waiting a moment, I sensed a presence right in front of the fitting room.
“Yuhan? Could you open the door slightly?”
“Just a moment…”
I carefully opened the fitting room door and stretched my arm through the gap.
Then I waved it in the air for a moment as if lost.
With the sleeve of my t-shirt rolled up to my shoulder, the atmosphere was maximized.
“Yu-Yuhan! You’re sticking out too much!”
“Hm?”
Pretending not to know, the moment my hand touched Ari’s arm.
I grabbed her arm and.
Quickly slipped out of the fitting room while opening the door.
“Wah! That surprised- me…”
Uh… did I surprise her too much?
Ari, with her arm caught by me, turned bright red and froze.
This is exactly what you’d call an overly generous reaction.
I just wanted to show a reversed-reversed world male’s… that is, an original world male’s battle of wits to a reversed world female.
“Um… Ari? Are you okay?”
Hmm.
Should I consider her nodding with blank eyes as being okay?
Moreover.
“Ah, Ari, your nose is bleeding!”
“Huh…?”
For an adult woman who has a boyfriend to get a nosebleed from this kind of ‘prank’. It’s not like I did anything that extreme.
What kind of life has she lived?
Even if she was a model student!
Her blank expression changes to a surprised one, and the surprised expression changes again to an embarrassed one.
This isn’t the time to be embarrassed.
I looked around, but of course there wouldn’t be any tissues.
“Ari, wait just a moment!”
“U-um?”
I roughly closed the fitting room door and quickly changed clothes.
The unlocked fitting room door opened slightly, but that’s not important right now.
Even though these are clothes for sale, I’ll probably change right away anyway, so it should be fine to wear them for a bit.
When I came out, her nosebleed had gotten worse.
“Hold this against your nose!”
“Huh?!”
It’s a shame since it’s a white shirt, but friends are more important to me than clothes.
I roughly crumpled the shirt and held it to Ari’s nose.
The smell… shouldn’t be there, right? I hadn’t sweated.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry… It was meant to be a joke but I guess I went too far… There should be tissues in the bathroom, so hold this until we get there.”
Ari nodded with a dazed expression and trudged to the bathroom.
This is my mistake.
I’ll have to apologize properly next time.
###
“Huh? Where did noona go?”
“Ah… just to the bathroom…”
“Really? Ah, hyung, how about this clothes?”
“It would really suit you, sir!”
The untrustworthy words from this duo.
I thought they might have picked out another five bright outfits, but.
What they were holding was a stylish black dress shirt.
Even my reason is shouting that this shirt is quite appealing…
My instinct is beyond that level, jumping around in excitement. This heart-fluttering feeling.
Though I feel uneasy that this Geum Taeyang body and mindset seem to have become similar. Well, I probably would have liked this shirt even before coming to the reversed world. It has style, right?
“I picked out some pants too! Let’s try them on!”
Shouldn’t you say “let’s try them on several times” rather than just once?
Well, I said that, but my body is honest.
It was already looking forward to trying on the clothes.
In the end, the pants I chose were black pants with a formal feel.
I don’t know if there are technical terms to express this kind of thing, but what would someone as fashion-ignorant as me know.
Anyway, the result was quite stylish.
If it were winter, I thought an even better coordination could have been achieved with a coat, but there’s a reason they say the face completes the fashion.
This face is a cheat key even by my own standards.
Jihun and the employee praised me using the bizarre vocabulary of ‘man crush’ following ‘meminist’.
As for Ari…
Well.
She had to return to the bathroom again.
(End of chapter)